RIPPLE RIPPLE RIPPLING:
10-YEAR REVIEW
Solo Exhibition
Architectural Association Gallery, London, UK.
11 October – 7 December, 2024
The work presented at the Architectural Association (AA) is a moment of homecoming to the place where this project originally began. At the AA Gallery, the exhibition features an immersive walk-around screening of the Ripple Ripple Rippling film trilogy, as well as multimedia storytelling that combines drawings, photographs, and field footage to showcase fragments of life and landscape around the Shigushan village.
The stories of the two most ‘hidden’ groups of village community — the aunties and grannies (affectively termed) are paired with sanded patches on the wall. Running fingers across the patch, the one-millimetre ‘topographic’ change of depth silently speaks of the 16 years of exhibition history at the AA. Together, they create a double-revealing moment that connects the AA gallery with the Chinese village.
Ripple Ripple Rippling
Overview of the project
On the Margins
The Hall
Till Ashes Turn Into Pines
Structured Ambiguity: Scroll as Method, AA Files 79 (special feature), 2023
Rippling: Towards Untamed Domesticity, in The Journal of Architecture, 2022
Collectivisation, Paradox, and Resistance: The Architecture of People’s Commune in China, in The Journal of Architecture, 2022
Transversal Alliances Symposium, AA Lecture Hall, London, United Kingdom, 11 October 2024
Jesse Darling in conversation with Jingru (Cyan) Cheng & Chen Zhan, AA Lecture Hall, London, United Kingdom, 24 October 2024
KoozArch interview: Ripple, Traces, Drifts: Jingru (Cyan) Cheng and Chen Zhan on process-oriented practice, 2025
Wallpaper exhibition review: Architectural Association's newest show uncovers the architectural legacies of rural China's lost generation, 2024
Curated by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng, Chen Zhan, Mengfan Wang and AA Public Programme
Exhibition Realisation: AA Public Programme
Exhibition Installation: Install Archive and AA Facilities
Exhibition Graphic Design and Editorial: AA Communications Studio
Exhibition AV: AA Audio-Visual Department
Exhibition Printing: AA Print Centre
Exhibition Title Signwriting: Mengfan Wang
Installation Photo: Anne Tetzlaff, Chen Zhan
Installation Video: Arturo Bandinelli, Chen Zhan
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The exhibition was supported by the Architectural Association, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Huazhong University of Science and Technology School of Architecture and Urban Planning, as well as villagers from Shigushan who generously let us into their lives over the years.